Monthly Archives: October 2008

Dynamic OpenURL lookup with document delivery

Posted on by
4

Even though I’ve switched to a different area of work, I have still been handling many projects and tasks related to my old job these past several weeks. One project involved the integration of our OpenURL resolver (SFX) into our document delivery service.  A few days ago this project work completed and was successfully implemented. I am pretty thrilled with the result!

Basically a team of people met earlier this year to figure out how we could address the following issues:

  • Make better use of our SFX linking
  • Help our users know, earlier in the process, when we have something available in full text
  • Help our users save time and money by avoiding unnecessary document delivery charges

My library has a heavily-used web form that our customers use for inputting document delivery requests, 99% of which are for journal articles.  We charge for fulfilling their requests (average charge across all orders including regular charges mixed with higher priced rush orders is between $20-30 per article request).  We also know that a fairly significant number of article orders received via this web form on our site are for articles that we already have available in full text, at no additional cost to our users. Our library averages about 100 such requests per day.  The typical workflow is that a user inputs citation information into the form, clicks on a Continue button, is presented with a confirmation screen (with the ability for the user to modify or change information in the form), and then a Submit button for completing the order process.

Our idea was to add new functionality between the initial order form input screen and the confirmation screen, such that the article citation information would be used to dynamically look up our holdings in SFX and, if a valid match was found, a new SFX full text link would be presented in the confirmation screen telling the user that full text was available online.

This new functionality sounds simple but involves a lot of complex stuff behind-the-scenes.  In particular we were concerned that the SFX link presented to the user needs to work as close to 100% of the time as possible.  Anyone who uses any kind of OpenURL service knows that full text links are not as stable and successful as users wish.  The last thing we wanted was to present this new option and then give the user a bad experience and turn them off if the link, when clicked on, doesn’t work.

As already stated, I am thrilled with the results. Extensive testing has shown that this new functionality works well. The end result will be significant cost savings for our users. A very conservative estimate puts savings at more than $20,000 per year.  One of the things we built into the project is a method for specifically tracking use of the new functionality so we’ll be able to have exact figures rather than estimates over time.  Below is a screenshot of the new functionality.

image-0017.jpg

And the really cool thing is that with the coding we’ve done behind-the-scenes, this project is only the start of what we are able to do.

Missing church again

Posted on by
Reply

I am sitting here on the couch, missing church again. All of us woke up too late to get going in time. Sigh. That says something, I suppose, about the general state of my faith walk.

On the positive side, we had a good time visiting with my brother Dan in Milwaukee yesterday.  We went to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch — the first time I’ve ever eaten there. I really enjoyed a — get this — pear and gorgonzola pizza.  It was delicious!  The rest of the afternoon was spent sitting idly and/or napping (one of my favorite pasttimes), and then I went to a nearby Pick ‘n Save to buy roast chicken, salad, challah bread and other stuff for a nice supper.  We got home around 8:30p.

A quick trip to beautiful Milwaukee

Posted on by
Reply

My brother, Dan, moved to Milwaukee a few days ago and started a new job there. He rented a nice house and invited us to come up and see it today. So we did.  It was a beautiful day, nearly perfect weather.  Most people who aren’t familiar with it think Milwaukee is a grimy, industrial-type of city. It used to be like that, I think, but these days it is really beautiful in places, especially along the lakefront.  We loved Dan’s place and we also enjoyed eating lunch together at a nearby Mongolian barbeque restaurant.  See a photo album of the trip here.

Sick and tired and overwhelmed

Posted on by
6

Today I stayed home because I woke up feeling unwell.  Michele isn’t feeling well either.  It’s been a day of alternating between sleeping and sitting stupidly on the couch.

I find current news in this country to be quite depressing, although not surprising.  We’ve all lived in the proverbial house of cards for years and years.  In addition, I believe whatever moral compass this country ever had — if it ever had any — has gone completely haywire and we are reaping the rewards of that.  An example is the extremely nasty political season, one which I think is by far the worst and most extreme of any that I’ve ever experienced.  I’m not happy with either side of the political spectrum but there is absolutely no way that I could in any good conscience vote for Obama/Biden. I’ll just leave it at that.

One of the things that I always struggle with and particularly at times like this, is the fact that as a follower of Christ, I need to place my hope completely in Him.  I try to remember Psalm 20:7 among other Bible verses.  I think one of the worst aspects of American evangelical Christians is a weird and twisted belief in achieving their goals via political ends. Like the U.S. is the true “promised land” and our country is God’s beacon to the rest of the world.  This is not to deny the fact that we have been incredibly blessed in this country and that a huge amount of good has come from it.  (Any good that has been done has come from the wellspring of Judeo-Christian values, in my view.) But the thought that we Christians should try to legislate morality at a time when we have long since lost our own moral compass and live exactly the same as everyone else, just makes me want to weep.

I’m sick and tired and overwhelmed. I worry about providing for my wife and children.  I’ve always struggled to be positive rather than negative in outlook (ironic, isn’t it? since I profess to believe that God is fully in control.)